How to Properly Prepare Your Backyard for Summer

Having a backyard is a blessing and gardening is a great hobby, allowing you to come up with a beautiful space and helping the environment, in addition to literally giving you fruits to be reaped. Summer is the right time for your outdoor setting to shine and making proper preparations can’t start soon enough.

Prepping Your Gardening Area

Simply trying to grow a garden in your backyard won’t do the trick – not unless you prepare the soil properly. It needs to be enriched – if it is light brown in colour, this means that it’s going to need some refreshing, seeing as how the darker shades of brown and black represent rich soil. Getting some quality compost (or making it as a DIY project) and aged mushroom soil will do the trick here; add 10 to 15 centimetres of it onto your soil. After this, dig the compost into your backyard. Not only will this enrich your soil, but it will also help loosen the ground in order to create space for roots that need to grow. Just make sure you clean everything afterwards.

Coming up with a Plan

Planning before actually getting your supplies is the key here. Make a list of what you want to grow in order to avoid being smeared into a shopping spree at the garden centre. Keep in mind that there are a lot of choices here – from vegetables and fruits to herbs and flowers. When it comes to gardening tools, try sticking with the basics in the very beginning; no use spending huge portions of your budget on full gardening kits just to be safe. For example, getting quality water cartage tanks is usually a much better choice than having different small containers lying all around your backyard.

Planting

Not every type of seed is just the same and a majority of packages contain detailed information imprinted onto them. For example, certain plants benefit from being sowed directly into the garden, while others do well only when being planted in containers, which you can bring inside when it gets cold. If you are a newbie gardener, learning how to tend to plants before growing them can be extremely beneficial, which is why getting starter plants, pre-grown by professionals is an excellent idea.

Location

Okay, palm trees will definitely look exciting and beautiful everywhere, but trying to grow them in Manchester, for example, isn’t likely to work. Instead of dreaming tall about a gorgeous garden with plants of your choosing, adapt to your location – not only will this make the whole job easier, but it will also ensure that your garden is a success. Additionally, look at your own garden space – you may live in a town that gets a ton of sunlight, but if your garden is in the shade for the most part, this doesn’t really mean a whole lot.

Weed Barrier

Weeds are every gardener’s common plague, making your outdoor space looking untidy and disorganised. Of course, creating a barrier will help here, but doing so after you’ve already planted your plants won’t help you. First, pull as many weeds out by the root as you can and then lay down a cardboard layer. After doing so, build garden beds on top of the laid cardboard. The lack of sunlight below the cardboard layer will prevent the weeds from taking over your garden and your plants will thrive! Weed barriers are the gardener’s secret weapon!

Getting your backyard prepped for summer is the best way to spruce up your home’s outlook. Other than that, gardening is a very rewarding hobby that does require dedication but pays off in terms of giving you a sense of accomplishment.